Apple helps Huawei to report record first-quarter profit

• Rebound in its consumer segment and income from new businesses like smart car components accelerating its recovery.

Huawei Technologies reported a 564 per cent jump in first quarter profit to 19.65 billion yuan ($2.71 billion) in the first quarter as it took a massive bite from Apple’s market share in China.

According to a filing from Huawei’s holding company posted to the website of the National Interbank Funding Centre in China, revenue for the quarter to March rose 37 per cent to 178.5 billion yuan ($24.65 billion).

The Shenzhen-based company has since responded by diversifying into other fields including 5G, artificial intelligence and smart-driving technology in a bid to rescue flagging sales.

A Huawei spokesperson said “digitalisation, intelligence, and decarbonisation” helped to drive revenue growth.

“The industry and global markets will remain rife with uncertainty for the rest of 2024. Nevertheless, we are continuously building out mechanisms for global business continuity and agile operations,” the company said.

“We are confident that we can meet our annual business targets and achieve sustainable growth.”

Rebound in consumer segment

Huawei recorded its fastest revenue growth in four years in 2023, with a rebound in its consumer segment and income from new businesses like smart car components accelerating its recovery from US sanctions in 2019.

Despite the ban, Huawei’s smartphone business has undergone a renaissance and rolled out a new high-end smartphone – Mate 60 – powered by a domestically-made chipset last year and the company has started selling its new high-end device – Pura 70 smartphones in China.

The company has become a force to reckon with in the smart car category also with its driver assistance system, running on HarmonyOS, touted by at least seven Chinese automakers at the Beijing auto show.

According to Canalys research, Huawei returned to the top spot in China after 13 quarters, shipping 11.7 million smartphones and capturing a 17 per cent market share, due to an enthusiastic market response to its Mate and nova series while Apple declined the most among the top five, with 10 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 25 per cent.

A key strategy for Huawei in 2024, Canalys Senior Analyst Toby Zhu said, is to focus on building AI capabilities for smart devices from hardware to software at a system level, leveraging its deep R&D capabilities in AI infrastructure and solutions for industry and enterprise customers.

“With the continued expansion of the HarmonyOS ecosystem, Huawei emerges as the third OS for smartphones and other edge computing devices, breaking the two-horse race of Android and iOS in Mainland China,” he said.